coprime

I convinced my boyfriend to see the Disney documentary Oceans with me on Thursday. I loved it, although given that it was about marine creatures, it would have had to work hard to get me to not like it. Pierce Brosnan surprised me by being quite an enjoyable narrator; he had a nice, soothing voice that you could listen to without being distracted from the amazing images on screen.

The actual words of the narration, on the other hand, were odd. There was very little factual information, and instead there were a lot of romantic ideas about the ocean and life in it. For example, at one point Brosnan starts going on about how the sea has tried every trick of life -- every color, every face, every look -- and they show this neat little fish with fans for pelvic fins. I don't recognize him offhand, but I can't look him up at home because he's never named in the narration. Most of the facts were along the lines of "the blue whale is half a city block long but eats tiny, tiny krill" and "otters use rocks as tools to open shellfish to eat." Which is fine, I guess, but not very deep.

The visuals were amazing however. Lots of neat animals, lots of close-ups and sweeping vistas. I kept going "oooh!" and "ahh!" throughout at just about everything they showed onscreen. They tried to show a bit of everything -- sea mammals, sea birds, sharks, fish, reefs, etc. -- and did a pretty good job of it. The one thing lacking was any sort of deep sea creatures, which is sad because they're often super interesting due to the extreme environment they live in. Ultimately, I think this documentary is the equivalent of a coffee table book: it's very pretty to look at, but it's a bit light on substance.

I think the xkcd comic from that day manages to sum up the driving point of the movie in one panel while also being pretty to look at.